


what you want (what you need)

by twaision



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Dinner Date, F/F, How Do I Tag, Implied Sexual Content, Mentions of Violence, billboard sexting, i guess, post season one, this is my first fic so i'm a lil lost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:41:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22435816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twaision/pseuds/twaision
Summary: No. She had to be hallucinating.There was no way in hell she was actually looking at a gigantic billboard with her face on it.But she was.After Paris, Villanelle knows just how to get Eve's attention.
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Comments: 11
Kudos: 117





	what you want (what you need)

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the promotional billboards for season 2.  
> Title from Nothing But Thieves' song Lover, Please Stay.

No. She had to be hallucinating.

It must have been the eggs she had had for breakfast that morning. She’d noticed the expiration date but had decided to ignore it, which she was very much regretting now. Because that was the only possible explanation for what she was seeing—this could be nothing but the result of intoxication-induced delirium. There was no way in hell she was actually looking at a gigantic billboard with her face on it.

But she was.

She looked under the hideous photograph (she was hungover that day, okay?) to read the text on the billboard for what must have been the millionth time. _Has anyone seen my girlfriend? Wanted for stealing my heart_ _❤_ _️_ _(and stabbing me, although I’m over that x)_. The more she looked at it, the more she accepted that it was, in fact, real. _Of fucking course_ the first sign of life from Villanelle after Paris would be a pointedly public love threat the size of her living room, sitting just outside the new MI6 office that Carolyn had had set up for her team.

“Lady, you daft? Out me fucking way!”

Eve got shaken out of her stupor as a man bumped into her from behind, and realised she’d been standing frozen in the middle of the sidewalk for much longer than is socially acceptable in central London. Now, as she glanced around, she could see a few people looking between her and the billboard, probably wondering if she was some kind of D list celebrity and, in that case, if asking for a selfie would be worth it. It was probably best to keep moving, but she couldn’t help but sneak one last lingering look at the billboard.

As she took the long way home, Eve tried to figure out what it was exactly that she was feeling. She was angry, of that she was certain. Villanelle had no right to crash into her life after months with no form of contact. Or did she? After all, Eve _had_ stabbed her the last time they had seen each other- No. She needed to stop feeling guilty about that. Villanelle was a professional assassin, a psychopath, any normal person would have done what she did. (She tried not to think about the softness of Villanelle’s silk sheets, about the shape of her mouth, about the hurt in her eyes and in her face and in her voice as she whispered _I really liked you_ with a knife in her gut).

She knew she should be scared that Villanelle was back for revenge, that she would show up any moment to slide a knife into her and watch her bleed out, but she wasn’t. She felt completely calm. After all, the assassin’s message had said that she’d forgiven Eve for the little stabbing incident, and Eve believed it. No, it definitely wasn’t fear she was feeling. It was something else, something she’d rather not examine closely. Because normal people with normal jobs and boring husbands did _not_ get excited when a psychopath contacted them. And Eve was a normal person. _She was._

Before she knew it, she was standing right outside her front door. She vaguely wondered for a minute how she’d made it there without being hit by a car, considering she hadn’t been processing her surroundings at all.

As she turned the key and opened the door, she was surprised to smell the distinct scent of a pesto sauce. Niko hadn’t made anything more sophisticated than a tomato sauce for pasta in years.

For the second time that day, time seemed to stop for Eve as she entered the kitchen and found herself face to face with the woman that had been haunting her thoughts for the last six months at least. She was wearing Niko’s apron over a fancy tuxedo. Her hair was down, and Eve was shocked to realise that it was the first time she had seen it like that. Frankly, it was unfair of her to look this fucking good. Damn her.

“Eve!” Villanelle had started walking towards her at some point, bringing the sweet scent of her perfume with her. Eve managed to stop herself from inhaling again, but the damage was done. She felt it again, that unnameable feeling, deep in her core. “Sit down, dinner is almost ready”. She had to stop staring. Villanelle’s smile became amused. She _definitely_ had to stop staring. _Come on, Eve. Just move. One foot in front of the other. One foot and then the other. You’re almost there_.

She managed to reach the table and gripped the backrest of one of the chairs. She didn’t manage to stop staring.

“Dinner?”

“Pasta. Pecan pesto shells with sausage. I would have made something a bit more special to fit the occasion, but I didn’t have much time.” Villanelle seemed to realise Eve hadn’t sat down yet. “If you’re worried about Niko, don’t be. He’s having dinner with some annoying teacher from his school. It wasn’t hard to get him to say yes.” Then, in a hushed voice, as if she were revealing someone’s deepest secret, “She has _very big tits._ ”

A laugh escaped Eve’s throat before she could stop it. She laughed partly because she’d met Gemma before and could confirm Villanelle’s description was accurate. But also because, now that the shock was wearing off, she realised her husband's safety should probably have crossed her mind at some point or another. Oh, well. She finally sat down in her chair when Villanelle gestured that dinner was ready and she waited until it had been served, and her unexpected date for the night had sat down in front of her, before speaking again. She couldn’t help but notice that they were sitting in the same spot where they had had that first conversation that felt like lifetimes ago.

“Why are you here?” _Why now? Why aren’t you angry? Where have you been? Can you show me your scar?_ There were so many things she wanted to ask, but she stuck to the more pressing question for now.

“To have dinner with you. I thought that was obvious, Eve.”

“Oh, cut the crap.”

Slowly, Eve saw Villanelle’s mask slip and give way to an expression she had seen only twice before: in a café in Moscow, with the cold metal of a gun in her hand; and on a bed in Paris, with the cold metal of a knife between her fingers. Now, she gripped the cold fork in her hand tighter as she saw the other woman’s expression turn into one of pure vulnerability.

“I wanted to apologise.” Eve didn’t know what she’d been expecting her to say, but it definitely wasn’t that. For once, she could hear in her voice the tears that her eyes hinted at, and not for the first time, she thought how easy it was to forget the young woman in front of her had killed hundreds of people with absolutely no remorse.

“You do realise I stabbed you, right?”

“Yes, Eve.” Her tone was exasperated now, like that of someone who’s explaining something obvious for the fourth time. “It hurt. I’m guessing seeing that picture of yourself so big also hurt, so we’re even now. But no, I wanted to apologise for underestimating you. I thought it would be fun to play for a bit, but now I realise that we are the same.” The more she spoke, the more Villanelle’s eyes shone, as though she had been waiting for this moment, to be face to face with her equal, her entire life.

“I am _nothing_ like you.” Eve replied, deliberately calmly, while she felt the words uncomfortably twisting inside her. She didn't miss the spark in Villanelle's eyes getting brighter and her grin widening, showing sharp teeth she had imagined biting, scratching, teasing her until she could no longer breathe and the tightness in her core and in her muscles finally got its relea- _Focus_. She needed to focus. “You wouldn’t know a genuine feeling if it hit you in the face.”

“I feel things, when I’m with you.”

Well, if Eve had been looking for honesty, she was most definitely getting it now. She didn’t know how to respond without bringing all her fears to light, so she opted for scooping up some pasta and shoving it in her mouth. She couldn’t hold back a moan. _God_ , so Villanelle was a good cook as well? Eve made it her mission to find _one_ thing she wasn’t good at. Just the one.

When she looked up from her plate, she saw that Villanelle’s expression had changed into a cocky one, as if she knew exactly what Eve was thinking. But there was something else there, something darker that made Eve forget all about the pasta and curse the table for separating her from what she truly wanted.

Before she could delve into it any further, she was startled by Villanelle suddenly getting up and walking to the cabinet where they kept the wine glasses, opening it with an ease that would make anyone think she had been living in the house for years. She took two of them and then opened an expensive-looking bottle Eve hadn’t noticed until that moment. She poured them both a big serving and put the glasses down on the table.

Eve’s eyes had raptly followed every movement.

“Tell me about your last kill.”

There was no mistaking it now. The lust in Villanelle’s eyes was so clear it made Eve grateful for the fact that she was sitting down, because she didn’t think her legs would have been able to hold her weight in that moment.

“You want to know?”

“Yes.” It sounded way too eager, Eve realised, but she was too far gone to care.

“It was right before I came here.” Villanelle began, her voice almost a whisper. She was still standing next to the table, close enough for Eve to feel Vilanelle’s magnetism pulling, pulling, pulling them towards each other.

“I- yes.”

“It was his wedding. Very fancy, very boring. Nice food.” Eve could feel it getting closer, and it seemed her body felt it too. She hadn’t felt so alive in a long time. “They chose a very pretty knife to cut the cake.”

Little by little, inch by inch, they’d been moving closer, close enough for Villanelle to move her left hand to Eve’s neck, resting over her pulse. Eve’s breath hitched, waiting to see what she would do next.

“It slid through his throat so easily, Eve. You would have loved it.” And the fingers on Eve’s neck moved, drawing a thin line, raising all the hairs on her body, until they reached the back of her head and settled there, tangling in her hair.

Later, Eve wouldn’t be able to say who had moved first (Villanelle would swear it had been Eve), she would just remember the heat. Everywhere. On her lips and on her cheeks and on her tongue and on her neck and on her hands and on the back of her head. But there was also the freedom. The freedom of giving in to her deepest desire and forgetting, just for one second, how a “normal” person is supposed to feel and how a nice person is supposed to act. Fuck normal. Fuck nice. She could be herself now. Here, now, appreciating the fact that Villanelle was an amazing kisser (because _of course_ she was). Villanelle seemed to think the same thing about Eve, if her quiet, breathy moans were anything to go by.

It must have been hours before they parted (it had not —it had been 3 minutes). Eve rested her forehead against Villanelle’s while they caught their breath.

“Will you… will you stay? For a little b-”

“Yes.”

The weight that had been lifted off Eve’s shoulders didn’t come back. As they cleaned up the table, as they kissed against the table, as they sat on the sofa, as they kissed on the sofa, as they chose a movie, as they gave themselves to each other with the sound of dumb teenagers being massacred on the background and as, after hours of breathing each other in, they succumbed to sleep… Eve felt free.

\---

In the following months, the billboard in central London changed more often than any other in the city. Sometimes, it would be direct messages, quite similar to the first one, but more often than not they would be more subtle, something that only the intended receiver would be able to understand. An ad about the best Shepherd’s pie in the city, a photo of Paris, a bitten apple. The one thing that remained the same was the feeling Eve got each time it changed, as she knew exactly what to expect when she got home. She knew that, for a few hours at least, she would be able to drop the façade and be herself.

She would be free.

* * *

Thanks for reading!! This is my first fic ever and the first thing I've written in five years so I hope it wasn't too bad. If you want you can find me @ [olympicmani](https://twitter.com/olympicmani) on twitter.

And thank you to my sister [coolification](https://archiveofourown.org/users/venusdebotticelli/pseuds/coolification) for correcting it and also for using her graphic design skills to bring the billboard to life [here.](https://drive.google.com/open?id=15NolQNPOaez3_e3owDJ67oY2UAmChHhF)


End file.
